Thanks for trying to at least provide some references Ghark. I'm curious how credible you honestly believe them to be though. All but 2 of them are to the same blog, the one is a very short piece by Ynet with nothing more to say than that SANA declares itself the victim and the other is a different blog reporting proof that America supports activists in authoritarian countries.

That last bit seems to be the most veracious of all the claims, but I wouldn't call it 'news'. America(sadly, like virtually all governments) not only supports repressed activists but has also actively supported what can only be called terrorists and has on multiple occasions participated in the overthrow of foreign rulers through covert and even overt assassinations. Don't mistake my claims here as being based on the naive notion that America or the CIA would never do anything like this, as they have and without a doubt will again. My claim is much different, and so is Tarpley's.

The important nuance I think your missing in my disagreement with Tarpley here is that his claim is NOT CIA support for a Syrian uprising. His claim is that there is, in fact, no legitimate Syrian uprising and that it is all a facade orchestrated by the CIA, Mossad, or whomever else he thinks is the puppet master. The truth of the matter is that the Syrian people are now living under their second generation of brutal dictatorship. The truth of the matter is that the Syrian people have seen the difference between the free world and their own, and those people have taken to the streets. Importantly to our discussion here, one of the ways they have seen the difference between freedom and repression has been through social media, like facebook, twitter and to at least some extent our dear videosift here as well.

The sources you referenced supporting Tarpley's notions on Syria all point back to either SANA, the Syrian state media, Al-Alam, the Iranian state media or XinhuaNet, China's state media. For brevity I won't point out the massive number of articles from the NYtimes, the CBC and BBC all reporting on the Syrian protesters being brutally repressed and murdered by Syrian forces. If you wish, I can fill out a page with supporting links, but I hope you might be able to recognize that at the very minimum these sources balance out with equal support. I would go further and posit that state funded media like CBC and BBC are vastly more independent from the state message than SANA and Al-Alam, but it isn't necessary to my argument.

If you accept my generous notion that the above can be called a draw, and we throw them out as having a bias one way or the other, what are we left with?

We are left with Al Jazeera reporting an entirely different story than Tarpley's:
http://blogs.aljazeera.net/liveblog/Syria

If you want more links from Al Jazeera they have a wealth of stories from all manner of separate and independent sources all backing their overall view that there is a legitimate internal Syrian uprising independently demanding the basic freedoms of a democracy, and the Syrian government met them with deadly repression, over and over and over again.

Is Al Jazeera a pro American tool of the CIA?

I'm going to cite what I consider to be very basic, fundamental facts but if you want references for them I can provide them if you don't trust a 5 second google verification of them.

The UN human rights committee voted 122 in favor of condemning Syria's crackdown, are they a pro American tool of the CIA?

The Arab League has threatened to revoke Syria's membership and asked that Syria allow their monitors into the country as a path to reconciliation, which Syria rejected.

Is the Arab League a pro America tool of the CIA?

*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/How-It-Should-Have-Ended-How-The-Empire-Strikes-Back

@Boise_Lib, come and do my bidding.

After verification, of course.

*dupeof=http://videosift.com/video/How-It-Should-Have-Ended-How-The-Empire-Strikes-Back

@Boise_Lib, come and do my bidding.

After verification, of course.

Occupy protests mapped around the world

Where are the Occupy protests taking place in the world after the camps in Wall Street and Madrid? See the full list of places we have found so far - and help report more

This map below shows events for which there is at least one independent verification, based on readers suggestions and Guardian research.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/interactive/2011/oct/18/occupy-protests-map-world?intcmp=239

>> ^Fade:
http://www.911hardfacts.com/report_09.htm
How the explosives may have been planted.


I looked at the site and a few comments:

1) The linked video didn't work, so maybe I'm missing something important.
2) There isn't really any discussion on the site of anything specific to planting explosives; just allusions to maintenance or evacutions with no details. It reads more like speculative storytelling than anything factual.
3) Not really sure what the hubbub about Marvin Bush being on the BoD is suppose to be. The author seems to think this is Earth-shattering news, but I don't understand why? Also, looking up Wirt Walker III, couldn't find any verification he is related to the Bush family at all. And even if he were, again, I fail to see the significance.
4) From further research, WTC security is actually provided through multiple agencies. Securacom/Stratesec had a contract to provide electronic security, although from what I can gather than contract mainly took place during the mid/late 90's.

So yeah, not really seeing anything of significance.

you can't tell a group of people they are wrong without providing explanations... that cuts both ways doesn't it?

i mean, i don't believe in god or an afterlife, but plenty of religious people tell me I'm wrong and give me no explanations...

and beliefs don't qualify as explanations ... there needs to be some level of verification beyond "because i believe it to be true" or "this book says so"

that the difference between atheism and religious belief... an atheist is humble enough to admit he doesn't know, a religious person substitutes belief into the "know" part of the equation and figures problem solved

and then sometimes even takes pity on you for not "knowing" like they do

now THAT is offensive

I don't think you should you the definition that "the study" gives because then the definition can be swayed by "the study". If a definition is given it should be defined by an outside source and the history of the definition should be seen how it has been used and the context in which it was used.

Independent verification-strange concept indeed

Your refutations were (in order)

"This guy believes in evolution"

"We can never prove anything about the fossil record"

"this quote is old"

"this guy is crazy"

"this quote is old"

"this guy is a probable creationist"

Yeah, amazing refutations..which you got from a website, while calling me out on doing the same thing. Evolutionists, biologists, palentologists etc DO dispute the theory of evolution..you were right though..the ones I provided were kind of weak. You'll have an infinitely harder time refuting these:

"With the failure of these many efforts [to explain the origin of life] science was left in the somewhat embarrassing position of having to postulate theories of living origins which it could not demonstrate.

After having chided the theologian for his reliance on myth and miracle, science found itself in the unenviable position of having to create a mythology of its own: namely, the assumption that what, after long effort could not be proved to take place today, had, in truth, taken place in the primeval past."

Loren C. Eiseley,
Ph.D. Anthropology. "The Immense Journey". Random House, NY, p. 199

"We have no acceptable theory of evolution at the present time. There is none; and I cannot accept the theory that I teach to my students each year. Let me explain:

I teach the synthetic theory known as the neo-Darwinian one, for one reason only; not because it's good, we know it is bad, but because there isn't any other.

Whilst waiting to find something better you are taught something which is known to be inexact, which is a first approximation."

Professor Jerome Lejeune,
Internationally recognised geneticist at a lecture given in Paris

"Considering its historic significance and the social and moral transformation it caused in western thought, one might have hoped that Darwinian theory ... a theory of such cardinal importance, a theory that literally changed the world, would have been something more than metaphysics, something more than a myth."

Michael Denton,
Molecular Biologist. "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis". Adler and Adler, p. 358

"The fact of evolution is the backbone of biology, and biology is thus in the peculiar position of being a science founded on an unproved theory - is it then a science or a faith? Belief in the theory of evolution is thus exactly parallel to belief in special creation-both are concepts which believers know to be true but neither, up to the present, has been capable of proof."

L.Harrison Matthews,
British biologist

"[The theory of evolution] forms a satisfactory faith on which to base our interpretation of nature."


L. Harrison Matthews,
Introduction to 'Origin of Species: The Preservation of Favored Races in the Struggle for Life', p. xxii (1977 edition).


"I reject evolution because I deem it obsolete, because the knowledge, hard won since 1830, of anatomy, histology, cytology, and embryology, cannot be made to accord with its basic idea. The foundationless, fantastic edifice of the evolution doctrine would long ago have met with its long deserved fate were it not that the love of fairy tales is so deep-rooted in the hearts of man."

Dr Albert Fleischmann. Recorded in Scott M. Huse, "The Collapse of Evolution", Baker Book House: Grand Rapids (USA), 1983 p:120

"Naturalistic evolution has clear consequences that Charles Darwin understood perfectly. 1) No gods worth having exist; 2) no life after death exists; 3) no ultimate foundation for ethics exists; 4) no ultimate meaning in life exists; and 5) human free will is nonexistent."


William B. Provine,
Professor of Biological Sciences, Cornell University, 'Evolution: Free will and punishment and meaning in life', Abstract of Will Provine's 1998 Darwin Day Keynote Address.


"The origin of life by chance in a primeval soup is impossible in probability in the same way that a perpetual machine is in probability. The extremely small probabilities calculated in this chapter are not discouraging to true believers ? [however] A practical person must conclude that life didn’t happen by chance."


Hubert Yockey,
"Information Theory and Molecular Biology", Cambridge University Press, 1992, p. 257


"As I said, we shall all be embarrassed, in the fullness of time, by the naivete of our present evolutionary arguments. But some will be vastly more embarrassed than others."


Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini, Principal Research Associate of the Center for Cognitive Science at MIT, "Inevitable Illusions: How Mistakes of Reason Rule Our Minds," John Wiley & Sons: New York, 1994, p195)


"In 10 million years, a human-like species could substitute no more than 25,000 expressed neutral mutations and this is merely 0.0007% of the genome ?nowhere near enough to account for human evolution. This is the trade secret of evolutionary geneticists."

Walter James ReMine,
The Biotic Message : Evolution versus Message Theory


"Today, a hundred and twenty-eight years after it was first promulgated, the Darwinian theory of evolution stands under attack as never before. ... The fact is that in recent times there has been increasing dissent on the issue within academic and professional ranks, and that a growing number of respectable scientists are defecting from the evolutionist camp. It is interesting, moreover, that for the most part these 'experts' have abandoned Darwinism, not on the basis of religious faith or biblical persuasions, but on strictly scientific grounds, and in some instances regretfully, as one could say. We are told dogmatically that Evolution is an established fact; but we are never told who has established it, and by what means. We are told, often enough, that the doctrine is founded upon evidence, and that indeed this evidence 'is henceforward above all verification, as well as being immune from any subsequent contradiction by experience'; but we are left entirely in the dark on the crucial question wherein, precisely, this evidence consists."


Wolfgang Smith,
Mathematician and Physicist. Prof. of Mathematics, Oregon State University. Former math instructor at MIT. Teilhardism and the New Religion: A Thorough Analysis of the Teachings of de Chardin. Tan Books & Publishers, pp. 1-2


"If there were a basic principle of matter which somehow drove organic systems toward life, its existence should easily be demonstrable in the laboratory. One could, for instance, take a swimming bath to represent the primordial soup. Fill it with any chemicals of a non-biological nature you please. Pump any gases over it, or through it, you please, and shine any kind of radiation on it that takes your fancy. Let the experiment proceed for a year and see how many of those 2,000 enzymes [proteins produced by living cells] have appeared in the bath. I will give the answer, and so save the time and trouble and expense of actually doing the experiment. You would find nothing at all, except possibly for a tarry sludge composed of amino acids and other simple organic chemicals.
How can I be so confident of this statement? Well, if it were otherwise, the experiment would long since have been done and would be well-known and famous throughout the world. The cost of it would be trivial compared to the cost of landing a man on the Moon.......In short there is not a shred of objective evidence to support the hypothesis that life began in an organic soup here on the Earth."


Sir Fred Hoyle,
British physicist and astronomer, The Intelligent Universe, Michael Joseph, London, pp. 20-21, 23.


"...(I)t should be apparent that the errors, overstatements and omissions that we have noted in these biology texts, all tend to enhance the plausibility of hypotheses that are presented. More importantly, the inclusion of outdated material and erroneous discussions is not trivial. The items noted mislead students and impede their acquisition of critical thinking skills. If we fail to teach students to examine data critically, looking for points both favoring and opposing hypotheses, we are selling our youth short and mortgaging the future of scientific inquiry itself."


Mills, Lancaster, Bradley,
'Origin of Life Evolution in Biology Textbooks - A Critique', The American Biology Teacher, Volume 55, No. 2, February, 1993, p. 83


"The salient fact is this: if by evolution we mean macroevolution (as we henceforth shall), then it can be said with the utmost rigor that the doctrine is totally bereft of scientific sanction. Now, to be sure, given the multitude of extravagant claims about evolution promulgated by evolutionists with an air of scientific infallibility, this may indeed sound strange. And yet the fact remains that there exists to this day not a shred of bona fide scientific evidence in support of the thesis that macroevolutionary transformations have ever occurred."


Wolfgang Smith,
Ph.D Mathematics , MS Physics Teilardism and the New Religion. Tan Books and Publishers, Inc.


"... as Darwinists and neo-Darwinists have become ever more adept at finding possible selective advantages for any trait one cares to mention, explanation in terms of the all-powerful force of natural selection has come more and more to resemble explanation in terms of the conscious design of the omnipotent Creator."


Mae-Wan Ho & Peter T. Saunders,
Biologist at The Open University, UK and Mathematician at University of London respectively


"In other words, when the assumed evolutionary processes did not match the pattern of fossils that they were supposed to have generated, the pattern was judged to be 'wrong'. A circular argument arises: interpret the fossil record in terms of a particular theory of evolution, inspect the interpretation, and note that it confirms the theory. Well, it would, wouldn't it?"


Tom S. Kemp,
'A Fresh Look at the Fossil Record', New Scientist, vol. 108, 1985, pp. 66-67


"We have proffered a collective tacit acceptance of the story of gradual adaptive change, a story that strengthened and became even more entrenched as the synthesis took hold. We paleontologists have said that the history of life supports that interpretation, all the while really knowing that it does not."


Niles Eldredge,
Chairman and Curator of Invertebrates, American Museum of Natural History, "Time Frames: The Rethinking of Darwinian Evolution and the Theory of Punctuated Equilibria," Simon & Schuster: New York NY, 1985, p144)


... by the fossil record and we are now about 120-years after Darwin and the knowledge of the fossil record has been greatly expanded. We now have a quarter of a million fossil species but the situation hasn't changed much.
The record of evolution is still surprisingly jerky and, ironically, some of the classic cases of Darwinian change in the fossil record, such as the evolution of the horse in North America, have had to be discarded or modified as a result of more detailed information."


David M. Raup,
Curator of Geology. Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago "Conflicts Between Darwin and Paleontology". Field Museum of Natural History. Vol. 50, No. 1, p. 25


"Thus all Darwin's premises are defective: there is no unlimited population growth in natural populations, no competition between individuals, and no new species producible by selecting for varietal differences. And if Darwin's premises are faulty, then his conclusion does not follow. This, of itself, does not mean that natural selection is false. It simply means that we cannot use Darwin's argument brilliant though it was, to establish natural selection as a means of explaining the origin of species."


Robert Augros & George Stanciu,
"The New Biology: Discovering the Wisdom in Nature", New Science Library, Shambhala: Boston, MA, 1987, p.160).







>> ^MaxWilder:
What the hell are you talking about? I refuted every one of your quotes point by point! I provided links to further information. The whole point was that your "evidence" of paleontologists speaking out against evolution was utter bullshit!
The only one where I discredited the source was from some no-name Swedish biologist that nobody takes seriously. Every other source was either out of context (meaning you are not understanding the words properly), or out of date (meaning that science has progressed a little since the '70s).
You have got your head so far up your ass that you are not even coherent now.
But you know what might change my mind? If you cut&paste some more out of context, out of date quotes. You got hendreds of 'em! </sarcasm>
>> ^shinyblurry:
So basically, you cannot provide a refutation to the information itself but instead try to discredit the source.

>> ^Ryjkyj:

You support giving unemployed people money, but not feeding them?


I support those that worked and paid into the pot getting a check for the "just in case" moments.

My true gripe with food stamps is that the process is completely broken. Buy soda, beef jerky, red bull, muscle supplements, you name it. Sell them to your next door neighbor if you want... Now, if they had a process that directly feeds someone with decent food, that's a bit different (Say, government sponsored food kitchens?)

WIC? I can agree with that program because it has some accountability measures that makes it harder to abuse. But even that doesn't prevent making a buck when the reason is not legit.

On a side note--the verification process for unemployment is lacking too. I claimed it for about two-three months, and, well, I could apply online with three jobs that I was not qualified for... Another reason unemployment irks me is that a corporation can fight you for nearly as long as they want and you cannot really do dick about it...

But that's in Florida, may be different other places.

But seriously, @shinyblurry I go into a debate with the mindset that I am either going to change the opinion of the person I'm debating with or I'm going to change my own opinion.

For example: I recently bickered with a friend about a bunch of new roundabouts that were put in near my home. I thought it was a stupid idea that would do more harm than good because people don't know how to use roundabouts. I argued that it would probably lead to more accidents because of all of the interweaving traffic.

My friend argued that while they were sometimes hard to maneuver in, they would make it easier for everyone because you wouldn't have to stop. And while that seems dangerous, most people are hurt in cross traffic because some people blow red lights. At that point I needed some verification *smartphone in a bar to the rescue!* and it turned out he was right. Roundabouts caused far fewer accidents because people were FORCED to slow down; this eliminated all of the red light blowing and accidents associated with it.

So what's the point here? Well in the weeks since this conversation when the topic came up, I was an ardent supporter of roustabouts and even though I don't like learning to use them, I appreciate that they save lives. I jump on neigh-sayers who hang onto the ideas that I did with statistical data to support my position.
----------
IF on the other hand, tomorrow I see, that roundabouts cause a sharp spike in (insert horrible death scenario here) and that outweighs the crosswalk statistical data, I would jump right back on the other bandwagon. It's not so much about just how I FEEL, it's about what I can prove and what is more important to me.

As it stands right now, and you yourself must admit, the idea of religion hinges on faith. I, like many others here, can not accept that as a good proposition because, like the cross-street vs the roundabout, my intuition about something is usually not what is the most important. I value rigorous analysis, and thorough argument over my gut. Since my guts, after all, have shit for brains.

Narcolepsy is a good explanation for hallucinations and people that are stolen by UFOs and Demons. They can't move, etc.. It's called night terrors or sleep paralysis--there are great paintings in (like the Succubus) history describing this.

Dreaming before you sleep is also common and acts on you as a hallucination, unless you know better--till you sleep.

/has it. Atheist. I wouldn't trust my brain WITHOUT verification for the most part, as it can screw up all the time.

I used to hold the idea that religion is control by way of fear for a long time but I don't anymore. The thing is that, it wasn't until monotheistic religions came on the scene that the fear and guilt aspect of religion showed up. Before the monotheistic religions, most beliefs didn't even have an afterlife that anyone could obtain.

For the better part of human history, the gods were arbiters of earthly events that we found to be larger than ourselves. The ocean was seen as a god, the sky was seen as a god. It's only been in the last 1700 years that fear and guilt have been used as control mechanisms.

I know we've talked about this before but why shouldn't you judge people for the path that they're on. Surely if it were something extreme like murder or rape, you would judge them regarding that path, why should judgement be limited to only extreme examples?

I contend that if you really care about having as many true beliefs and as few false beliefs as you possibly can, you'll be weary of subjectivity and subject every bit of information that you believe to be true or that might be new to you with the rigors of extreme objective scrutiny. Why would you want to believe something that you can objectively verify that isn't true.

Here's the think about your paragraph on faith. It isn't arrogance if you are correct. Truth can be found objectively and objectively discovered truth is the only kind that matters. The first question that should come from discovering something subjectively is "how do I know that I'm not delusional?", or "How do I know that I can trust my senses?" Faith can be derived from subjective beliefs, and to me, because of that fact, I see faith as the most self-centered and egotistical thought process in existence. It favors the methods of the individual as being more potent in discovering truth than the rigors of objective verification. It makes the statement "I am important and trust worthy enough to make conclusions based on my limited perception of reality and therefore my conclusion is equally valid to contending views."

The nature of intellectual debates where two people hold two opposing ideas is that one person is correct while the other is incorrect, or they are both incorrect. Isn't it more important to present all of your ideas with other person in order to discover what is correct, or to at least discover that neither are correct?

To be honest, I find that the kind people who think that proclaiming truth is the height of arrogance, don't actually know what it means for something to be objectively true. I find that those people have a wishy-washy outlook on belief in the way that everyone beliefs are equally valid. The creedo being "I have beliefs that are good for me and you have beliefs that are good for you therefore we are equal". I find that kind of view childish in the way that it seems like it's trying to be overly equally. Some beliefs are true, some beliefs are false, and some beliefs are not true (being that they are misinformed or something similar).

If someone believes that 2+2=5, is it arrogance to tell them that they're belief is false?

In reply to this comment by enoch:
religion is control by way of fear.
they pretend to be the gatekeepers and the ONLY people with the key to get through.
this is utter bullshit (try telling a fundamentalist that though....oh wait).
to me evolution and natural selection are more in line with my understanding of a creator than say:adam and eve,gilgamesh or mithra.

my understanding of a creator and my connection to that creator also allows me..in fact compels me..to stick to my own understanding and not judge others the path they are on.(be that christian fundamentalist or atheist).
my path is my own.my understanding is my own as are my conclusions.
i have the humility to understand i do not know everything,far from it and that my existence is about my own experiences and understandings.
and to have the flexibility according to these understandings that they may..at any time..change due to my subjective reality.
so any new information i receive is added and creates a new paradigm.

as for faith.
well..i cant help you there to further your understanding.that is a personal road and any attempt i do make concerning that will only be regarded with your understanding and most likely misunderstood.
so i dont even try.
why would i? to do so would be the height of hubris and arrogance and i would become just like the preachy fundamentalist.
/shivers...no thank you.
i prefer human interaction laced with mutual respect and a full understanding that i may,possibly..be wrong.

anyways.
always great chatting with you about this subject.
it is still one of my faves.
be well brother.

>> ^shinyblurry:

The truth: The bible contains no scientific errors.


Because it's a book about religion, not science. THAT'S why someone might say it's unscientific. The book I have on fly fishing contains no scientific errors either. Look in any cook book you might have in your house and you will find no scientific errors.

You're thinking of those religious people that try to say the bible can be proven scientifically. They're trying to put science in the bible by saying "This passage means they knew about planetary orbits" or whatever, when it just isn't true. Show me some differential equations in the bible and then you can say it's is scientific.

Also:
>> ^shinyblurry:

Atheist error #2 The bible is only confirmed by the bible, there is no outside external verification

The truth: There are over 39 sources outside of the Bible that attest to more than 100 facts regarding Jesus’ life, teachings, crucifixion, and resurrection.


Many "outside sources" confirmed that crop circles were "true". Tons of people from all over the world and different walks of life thought that scratchy old film of Bigfoot was real. The only difference between these things and the bible is that nobody revealed the hoax before they died. And people were much more gullible back then as opposed to now because the more we learn with science the more skeptical we can be about the incredible. There's more magic in the bible than there is verifiable science.

Oh boy, you have been "educated" on the bible, havent you. Too bad its all wrong.


Atheist error #1Translation upon translation has corrupted the original bible so now we don't know what it actually said
The truth: Today there survives more than 25,000 partial and complete, ancient handwritten manuscript copies of the New Testament alone, not to mention hundreds of Old Testament manuscripts that survive today dating back to as early as the third century B.C. These hand written manuscripts have allowed scholars and textual critics to go back and verify that the Bible we have in our possession today is the same Bible that the early church possessed 2,000 years ago.

This isnt really relevant, the bible could be the most accurately translated book of all time, and I'd still be an atheist.(its not, but I dont really care)

Atheist error #2 The bible is only confirmed by the bible, there is no outside external verification
The truth: There are over 39 sources outside of the Bible that attest to more than 100 facts regarding Jesus’ life, teachings, crucifixion, and resurrection. External sources verify that at least 80 persons from the bible were actual historical figures, 50 people from the Old Testament and 30 people from the New Testament. This includes Pontius Pilate, Caiaphas the High priest, and King David.


Again, not really relevant. The bible, along with the outside sources, were all written by superstitious desertdwellers some 2000 years ago, who gives a shit if these sources confirm eachother. Most of it confirms things like historical facts (Names of kings, major events , who lived where, and so on) None of it confirms the truth of any of the metaphysical claims, so at best, the bible is historically accurate(again, its not, but this is a long discussion)

Atheist error #3 The bible is unscientific
The truth: The bible contains no scientific errors. In fact, it reveals a number of facts about the Universe that simply were not known at the time. For instance, the bible states that the Sun is on a circuit through space, yet scientists at the time thought it was stationary. Even more amazing, the bible states the Earth is round when everyone else thought it was flat:
Isaiah 40:22 says, “It is He [God] who sits above the circle of the Earth." Job also talked about the earth being round.
This was 300 years before aristotle. The bible was over 2000 years ahead of its time. It was also widely thought at the time that the Earth was carried on the back of something else, like a turtle or the greek god Atlas. The bible taught the truth: Job 26:7 “He [God] hangs the Earth on nothing.” Scientists did not discover that the Earth hangs on nothing until 1650.
Another amazing fact that the bible uncovered far before man discovered the facts is that the number of stars is as the sand in sea.
Jeremiah 33:22 “The host of heaven [a reference to the stars] cannot be numbered, nor the sand of the sea measured.”
Before the telescope was invented, man was able to number the stars. The count was usually just over 1000. That was the prevailing scientific knowledge until the telescope was invented. The bible revealed though that there were more stars than anyone could count.

Oh boy.. Where to start here... Only a really religiously distorted mind could write this nonsense.

And nonsense like it has been written to "confirm" the accuracy of other holy texts as well. I was hit with a list of "facts" from the Quran much like this in a discussion once, one such "fact" was some nonsense about the "mountains securing the firmaments of the earth" was somehow confirmed by modern Plate-tectonics. I wonder whether you religious nuts can see through eachothers claims, can you see for instance, whats wrong with that Quran-argument, or does that seem reasonable to you? If not, why do the above arguments from the bible about god "hanging the earth in its place" seem like good decriptions of astronomical fact?

Atheist error #4 The history of the bible is made up, it is just mythology
The truth: In every instance where the Bible can be, or has been checked out archaeologically, it has been found to be 100% accurate.

Wow, thats almost 100% inaccurate. Israeli archiologists have, with great religious entusiasm and eagerness, for decades tried to document the 40-year travel through the desert from Egypt that the Jews are said to have done. One of the most famous bible stories, and, one would think, one of the best candidates to be proven true by archeology, yet they have all come up empty handed. It is, for all intends and purposes, as if it never happened.

Well written, but still factually biased. I don't dispute it takes a certain amount of faith to believe in something, but saying it takes more faith to believe in science over a religion is laughable, seeing as how most scientific processes can be duplicated in a lab, and the only time people see the immaculately concepted Jesus is in stale bread.

Calling them "errors" is an error, if you cant prove it so...

I don't even want to get started with your "#2" ...but I will touch on it:

"It is He [God] who sits above the circle of the Earth." Job also talked about the earth being round."
You mean to tell me that it wasn't the sun he probably was referring to? It is a very vague statement, loosely translated. I mean, wasn't the voyage of Christopher Columbus nearly defunded by the Queen of Spain due to the fact most of the Catholics believed the earth was flat? How could they possibly misinterpret such a factual document as the Bible then but not now, or at any other time?

#3 is also a gross interpretation of the bibles factuality, the closest thing people had to a science was alchemy if I'm mistaken, and there is a reason we don't teach Alchemy 101 these days. It was full of holes where we as a species didn't have an understanding of our own surroundings. Take beer brewing for example, even the German purity laws had to be amended to allow yeast as a viable and lawful ingredient to beer because the humans of the past flat out didn't understand or fathom its use/need in the brewing process because it had been introduced naturally to the unaware brewers since beer has been around. <-Thank you science, not the all knowing bible. External sources are just as unreliable then as they are now, if not more so, smart people expect some credibility, and aren't the type to blindly accept.
#4 "The history of the bible is made up, it is just mythology"
Most people don't dispute the correlation of events in the bible to that of actual history, its just obvious that either initially or over the years, the truth was embellished to that of an Aesop fable. The bible was meant to instill fear into the hearts of what are supposed to be "god fearing" people, what better way then writing about a hellish environment and 30 ft tall giants? (wait, was that part real, or no?) Oh and Nelson Glueck wrote that quote? Impressive... unless you consider the thousands of other scientists that have a slightly different opinion on the matter...

But I guess you can laugh at me while I burn in hell (decompose) and you are in heaven (decomposing) It would make much more sense if people would accept the fact that "God" no matter how you look at it, is just a manifestation of our own self righteousness as a species? That being said, please think "peace" and I to wish all of us a hearty blessing from "God."



>> ^shinyblurry:

It takes more faith to be an atheist than it does to be a Christian. I'll point out some common errors and misconceptions that atheists have.
Atheist error #1 Translation upon translation has corrupted the original bible so now we don't know what it actually said
The truth: Today there survives more than 25,000 partial and complete, ancient handwritten manuscript copies of the New Testament alone, not to mention hundreds of Old Testament manuscripts that survive today dating back to as early as the third century B.C. These hand written manuscripts have allowed scholars and textual critics to go back and verify that the Bible we have in our possession today is the same Bible that the early church possessed 2,000 years ago.

Atheist error #2 The bible is only confirmed by the bible, there is no outside external verification
The truth: There are over 39 sources outside of the Bible that attest to more than 100 facts regarding Jesus’ life, teachings, crucifixion, and resurrection. External sources verify that at least 80 persons from the bible were actual historical figures, 50 people from the Old Testament and 30 people from the New Testament. This includes Pontius Pilate, Caiaphas the High priest, and King David.
Atheist error #3 The bible is unscientific
The truth: The bible contains no scientific errors. In fact, it reveals a number of facts about the Universe that simply were not known at the time. For instance, the bible states that the Sun is on a circuit through space, yet scientists at the time thought it was stationary. Even more amazing, the bible states the Earth is round when everyone else thought it was flat:
Isaiah 40:22 says, “It is He [God] who sits above the circle of the Earth." Job also talked about the earth being round.
This was 300 years before aristotle. The bible was over 2000 years ahead of its time. It was also widely thought at the time that the Earth was carried on the back of something else, like a turtle or the greek god Atlas. The bible taught the truth: Job 26:7 “He [God] hangs the Earth on nothing.” Scientists did not discover that the Earth hangs on nothing until 1650.
Another amazing fact that the bible uncovered far before man discovered the facts is that the number of stars is as the sand in sea.
Jeremiah 33:22 “The host of heaven [a reference to the stars] cannot be numbered, nor the sand of the sea measured.”
Before the telescope was invented, man was able to number the stars. The count was usually just over 1000. That was the prevailing scientific knowledge until the telescope was invented. The bible revealed though that there were more stars than anyone could count.
Atheist error #4 The history of the bible is made up, it is just mythology
The truth: In every instance where the Bible can be, or has been checked out archaeologically, it has been found to be 100% accurate. The Bible has proven so accurate that archaeologists often refer to it as a reliable guide when they go to dig in new areas.
Nelson Glueck, who appeared on the cover of Time magazine and who is considered one of the greatest archaeologists ever, wrote: “No archeological discovery has ever controverted [overturned] a Biblical reference. Scores of archeological findings have been made which confirm in clear outline or in exact detail historical statements in the Bible. And, by the same token, proper evaluation of Biblical descriptions has often led to amazing discoveries.”
The fact is there have been more than 25,000 discoveries within the region known as the "Bible Lands” that have confirmed the truthfulness of the Bible.
So there are just some of the common misconceptions atheists have concerning the bible. If you had any of these misconceptions then I venture that you must re-evaluate your position. God bless.


*Edited punctuation at 23:40 5/2/2011